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I just posed another deleted scene on the new Excisions page: the original Rojer introduction chapter.

The scene is not my best work, which is why it was cut, but I learned a LOT from the experience, mainly about how it’s sometimes necessary to demand more of yourself than others do. I think budding writers might find the introduction and “why it was cut” sections of the new post interesting.

I don’t know if anyone really cares about these deleted scenes but me, but I’m having a blast writing about them. The Painted Man/Warded Man was a labor of love, and I learn a lot by looking back and reflecting on the mistakes I made along the way and how (for better or worse) I corrected them. I only have a handful of friends who are writers, and I really enjoy talking about the craft side of the process, even if I’m only talking to myself in some ways. I expect this is pretty dry stuff for a lot of people.

I haven’t figured out how to enable comments on the Excisions page yet, and the reader Forum we’re planning for the site is in its code infancy, but if anyone is interested and wants to talk a little shop about any of the deleted scenes, we can do it in the comment thread to this post. There’s a couple of really good scenes coming, along with a lot of little dots and dashes that I either learned something from or think are worth a glance.

Posted on January 9, 2009 at 4:38 pm by PeatB
Filed under Craft, Musings, Writing
8 Comments »

If you are a returning viewer, you may have noticed that the website looks just a little bit… awesomer than it did the last time you saw it. This has been a project many months in preparation, and my webmaster and very good friend Dave Wenk did a fantastic job of making it happen. The design is sleeker and hopefully more user-friendly, there is now a deleted scenes blog (listed as “Excisions“) which I will be adding to regularly, more info on the News page, and a few other bells and whistles.

But the best upgrade of all, which you the viewer don’t get to see, is that I can control the entire site now, which means I can update any and every page whenever I want (before I could only update the Peephole Blog Page). This means I can add content whenever the whim takes me, or the baby has me up at 3am anyway. Over the next few days/weeks, you will be seeing a LOT of new material added, as I begin to add all the new content that has been accumulating as I awaited the launch of the upgraded site. Many of those changes will be focused on the News page, which will also house a growing list of links to interviews I’ve done for various websites, and dozens of book reviews.

Please excuse the few things that we’re still working on over the next few days (like the pictures on the Creations and Character pages, which don’t expand when you click on them). They should all be back to normal soon.

Cheers to Dave Wenk for putting this all together. If you’re in the British Isles and want to see some of the beauty of the countryside off the beaten path, go on one of his walking tours from London at English Country Walks. I’ve been on two of his walks, and it’s always an amazing experience. Check out some of the fantastic photos on his site if you don’t believe me.

Posted on January 8, 2009 at 8:35 pm by PeatB
Filed under Cassie, Craft, Events, Interviews, Life, Musings, Reviews, Sales, Uncategorized, World Traveler, Writing
7 Comments »

Wow. No matter who you are, that was quite a year, wasn’t it?

In addition to going through one of the longest, most grueling, petty, and tedious election cycles in American history, we had another housing crash, war in the middle east (though that’s every year, really), countless bankruptcies and layoffs, two criminal US governors, the Bernard Madoff $50,000,000,000 Ponzi scheme, and the sudden realization that our entire banking and finance industry was little more than a Ponzi scheme, itself.

I could have told you that a long time ago, but no one listens to me.

On the other hand, OBAMA!! Whoot! The endless Bush nightmare is OVER!!!

What? He’s still president?

Shit.

Anyway, I tend to wax nostalgic on New Year’s Day (which is when I started this post, apologies for taking a couple of days to finish it), so I will reflect on how the year went for me. It was a doozy.

For starters, I think I made a New Year’s Resolution last year that I did a pretty good job of keeping. I’ll try to be even better about it this year.

Another interesting thing I noticed while going through last year’s blog posts was how I thought at this time last year that I would be done with The Desert Spear by June or July of 2008. BWA-HAHAHAHAHA! I was really kidding myself. (Seriously, though, it’s almost done. Promise. 4 chapters to go, and they probably won’t be long ones. Just demon killing and sex and stuff. Easy peasy.)

I became an uncle again at the beginning of the year, welcoming my first (and currently only) neice, Olivia. She’s grown a lot in the last year, and is looking to inspire my next book. Here is video of her acting like a monster:

Soon after Olivia arrived, Dani and I found out we were having a girl, as well. It made me really happy to know the cousins would be so close in age, and could have tea parties and watch High School the Musical together and whatnot.

Best. Birthday. Ever!

At NY ComicCon, I got a chance to meet my childhood idol,  Terry Brooks. He apparently liked The Warded Man. BTW, I’m totally psyched for ComicCon this year, too. which falls on my birthday weekend, and where I will be appearing on panels and doing a big signing at the Del Rey booth, where they will be giving away free copies of The Warded Man, as well as temporary Ward tattoos and other goodies. Buy your tickets now, before they sell out!

The the advance copies of The Painted Man arrived. Oh, what an amazing day that was. The culmination of a dream that began a quarter century ago. Here’s a pic of me with the ARC. I am holding an American quarter next to it for scale:

After that came the news that translations of the book sold in Spain and then the Czech Republic, giving me excuses to travel to two more beautiful countries at some point in the future.

After that was the birth of Luca (the Palooka) D’Entrone, who is practically family, and can be seen here on New Year’s Eve giggling like a maniac as Dani makes faces and Cassie and I watch in the background:

After that I became an uncle again, this time to baby Zack, born to my brother in law Mark and his wife. The baby thing was beginning to become an epidemic, and then it culminated with a climactic crescendo as I became a daddy. That’s right. Me. A father. It’s mind-boggling. Check this shit out:

I live for those giggles now.

Right around then, I started getting fan letters.  Getting fan mail is even weirder than being a parent. I’ve gotten a few dozen letters now, and I am still shocked and thrilled every time one pops up in my inbox. You people know I’m just some dork that played too much D&D, right?

The Painted Man launched in September in the UK, the worldwide first edition, and my friend Myke and I flew out for the big event. We saw London. We saw France. Didn’t seem much in the way of underpants, but I did step in vomit. Ah, Camden Town! A class act if ever there was one. I also did my first public book signing, had a fan make a YouTube book review, and did my first (and so far only) video interview.

The book has done amazingly well, exceeding everyone’s expectations. It made the Bookscan and Amazon UK bestseller lists, and actually sold out and needed to go back on press. Even the second printing is flying off the shelves; Amazon keeps selling out. It was named one of Amazon.co.uk’s 10 Best Science Fiction and Fantasy Books of 2008. I was also nominated for the David Gemmell Legend Award (voting is still open! Get in on that!).

But the fun didn’t stop there. I got to be on the radio in Australia, and then had the book translated into Japanese (by the nicest translator in the world) and published in Japan by Hayakawa Press. I love the Hayakawa editions; they split the book into 3 parts and released them as manga-sized booklets with fantastic cover art and some internal illustrations. Awesome.

Jay and I went to Albacon and World Fantasy in Calgary to promote/network, and then in November, the Polish translation of the book, Malowany Czloweik, went on sale, and judging from the traffic on my website and the letters I am receiving from Polish readers, it is going over quite well. It doesn’t hurt that publisher Fabryka Slow did an amazing job advertising and illustrating their version.

And did I mention the cover Larry Rostant did for The Desert Spear? It’s fricken’ amazing:

In December, yet another baby came into my life, born to another very close friend. And this one came with a special twist. They named him “Brett”! Sure, maybe he wasn’t technically named “after” me, but I’ll take what I can get. I can’t wait to meet him before he loses that new baby smell.

All in all, for me at least, 2008 was an amazing year. In fact, I am not even going out on a limb to say it was the best year of my life to date. To the point where I feel a little guilty, because I know how it sucked for millions of other people. I know I’ve had my sucky years (lord, have I ever), and it all balances out in the end, but it’s been really hard seeing people I care about going through hard times this year when things are going so well for me. Here’s hoping that 2009 brings good fortune and smooth sailing for all.

There will be some new exciting announcements expected early this year. Stay tuned!

Posted on January 4, 2009 at 4:23 pm by PeatB
Filed under Cassie, Life, Musings
6 Comments »

I have a huge stack of books I haven’t read. HUGE. Being an author who goes to conventions and has a lot of friends in the industry, I seem to acquire books at an astronomical rate; far faster than I could ever read them. But also being a new daddy and someone trying to finish his own work, I have become ver picky about what I devote my precious reading time to.

I just finished The Lies of Locke Lamora, and The Name of the Wind, and am now catching up on my also huge pile of accumulated comics while I try to decide what to read next. Here, in no particular order is a small selection from the pile; the books I am most likely to try out. If anyone has read them and wants to offer (spoiler-free!) suggestions, I would love to hear them.

(As a side note, check out the early stages of my Jardir and One Arm homemade heroes in the above picture. Both are works in progress, with Jardir being a modified 300 Immortal figure with a Leonidas head, and One Arm being a Pumpkinhead figure. Both need a coat of paint and some more accoutrement, which I will get around to one day.)

Karen Miller: Awakened Mage; Innocent Mage

Fiona McIntosh: Royal Exile; Odalisque; Myrren’s Gift

JRR Tolkien: The Children of Hurin

Note: I’ve tried to read this twice but it starts more like a textbook than a story, and keeps turning me off.

Robin Hobb: Assassin’s Quest; The Golden Fool; Fool’s Errand; Fool’s Fate

Note: The end of Royal Assassin kind of ticked me off, which is why I didn’t just jump into Assassin’s Quest.

Warren Ellis: Crooken Little Vein

Note: Love Ellis’ comics. LOVE them. I have never read his prose, though.

Jeff Somers: Electric Church

Note: Met Jeff and his wife a couple of times. Nice people. I’ve heard good things about the book.

Jaida Jones and Danielle Bennett: Havemercy

Note: Met Jaida and Danielle at NY ComicCon last year, and I liked them a lot. I started Havemercy, but it didn’t grab me. Been meaning to give it another shot.

David Anthony Durham: Acacia

Note: Heard nothing but good things about this, but it is a book of intimidating thickness, and I think it might be better served if I wait for my writing vacation after I finish The Desert Spear.

Brandon Sanderson: Mistborn; The Well of Ascension; The Hero of Ages

Note: Sanderson is my nemesis. We’re at the same agency, but that SOB writes like the wind and publishes like 5 books in the time it takes me to write a first draft of one. Makes me look bad.

Corey Doctorow: Little Brother

Terry Brooks: Armageddon’s Children; The Elves of the Cintra; The Gypsy Morph

Neil Gaiman: Neverwhere

Max Brooks: World War Z

Stephen King: On Writing

Steven Erikson: Midnight Tides

Dave Duncan: The Alchemist’s Apprentice

Charles de Lint: Mulengro

David Morrell: Scavenger

Posted on January 3, 2009 at 12:27 pm by PeatB
Filed under Musings
9 Comments »

In 2007 I went to the World Fantasy convention, which was being held that year in Saratoga, NY, just a pleasant few hours’ drive from where I live. I had just sold The Painted Man (back in stock on Amazon UK after selling out and going back on press!) and its sequels and had just decided to quit my day job (which I hated anyway) and start writing full time, which was always my dream career.

I didn’t know anyone at the convention other than my buddy Jay, my editor, and my agent’s assistant Steve, but World Fantasy is a con that’s pretty much exclusive to publishing industry insiders, and I had a real feeling of “these are all my co-workers now, and I want to meet as many of them as I can and learn as much as I can from them.”

One of the many fine people I met at that convention was the lovely and talented Deanna Hoak, a copyeditor who was up for a World Fantasy Award herself that year, but was also excited that a book she had worked on, The Lies of Locke Lamora by Scott Lynch, was up for best new fantasy.

I remember how thrilled Deanna was when Lies took the award. When I got home from the con, I was pleasantly surprised to find a copy of the book in my gift bag, and resolved to read it.

Of course, my “to-read” pile is a horrid place where many amazing books go to die. Everything I read, I tend to read slowly, savoring and considering every page. On top of that, I gave up a lot of my free time for pleasure reading when I started writing on my daily commute, and it’s never gotten back up to speed. I always feel like I should be focused on my own work, and not someone else’s.

But I do manage to read a few books here and there, and I picked up Lies a few months ago. I read about 150 pages (out of like 725), and was actually rather enjoying it, but then for some reason I put it down anyway and started reading something else. I probably read three books after that, which is usually the kiss of death. But then I picked it back up a couple of weeks ago, and flew through the rest of it. It is a great fucking book.

I think the reason I put it down is that I found life of his title character, Locke Lamora, exhausting. At the time, I was a new father who was also marketing his own book and working hard on a sequel. I was stressed and sleep-deprived, and the rare moments I had to catch my breath and read were usually in the bathroom, which isn’t the best place for a dense read like Lies, filled with layer upon layer of cleverness and intrigue. I wanted lighter fare.

But life has leveled off a bit, and I decided to give Lies another chance. I’m really glad I did. The story takes a lot of unexpected turns and ends with a climax that is thoroughly satisfying. It has more than enough closure to be taken as a stand-alone story, but I can see how it could also be part of a larger tale. Lynch does leave some unanswered questions and isn’t afraid of jumps back and forth in time to fill in blanks, so even characters who did not survive Lies might play a role in the later stories. I hope a few of them do.

I have a few quips of course, places where the storytelling was weak or the characters shallow on some point or another, but overall these were not enough to significantly affect my enjoyment of the narrative, or the intensity with which I turned the last 200 or so pages.

If anyone wants to weigh in on what I should read next, I can list what’s on the pile. That might be a fun discussion. It better be quick, though, or else I’ll just end up reading the sequel to Lies, Red Sea under Red Skies, which I already ordered on Amazon.

Posted on January 3, 2009 at 1:59 am by PeatB
Filed under Musings, My Reviews, Writing
2 Comments »